moving

Mattresses, Stairs, and parking tickets.

Jacob Redding — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:17:00 +0000

Last night Diana found a woman on craigslist that was giving her bed away. The woman was moving several streets down and had simply decided against moving the bed (This is common in Manhattan as moving large furniture items is typically much more of a hassle than it is worth). Diana was in need of a new bed, I still had my car in town, and, being the nice guy that I am, I volunteered to wake up at 8:30am, drive across town, pick up the bed, drive it back across town, and, finally, move it up six flights of stairs.

A “wonderful” thing in Manhattan is that many of the apartment complexes are old, which means that they are well made, look great, have eliquent staircases and no elevators.

I’m a stupid, stupid man.

Six flights of stairs, one full size mattress set, and one, now very sore, man.

I really wish I had my camera though. It was quite an interesting site; picture this. A small green car with a full size mattress set twined down to the roof rack. The car driving down a busy Manhattan street surrounded my taxicabs and delivery trucks. The passenger and driver each have one hand out the window holding the mattresses. It was an "interesting" site to see.

Moving on....

The, unfortunate, thing about yesterday is that I learned a lot about NYC parking rules/regulations; the hard way. Early in the afternoon I let a parking meter run 5 minutes over; $65 ticket. Later in the evening I parked on the wrong side of the road at the wrong time; another $65 ticket. Yup two tickets, one day. I’m $110 poorer.

I am leaving for Florida tomorrow and I will be back in the city on the 10th. I will do my best to get pictures up tonight.

One Week Later

Jacob Redding — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 19:15:00 +0000

Woah! I haven’t updated this blog for a week now. This past week has been amazing, depressing, frustrating and, at the same time, perfect.

After arriving on Thursday Diana and I played “catch-up” for the first few days. We went out to dinner, walked around town, talked, and just simply enjoyed the company of each other. I started my apartment search on Saturday morning by sending off about 10 emails to various people I found on craigslist. I focused my search to Manhattan below 40th subtracting the financial district. Yes, Yes I’m supposedly a finance person but I really don’t want to live in that area. I also included parts of Brooklyn (Williamsburg and Cobble Hill).

Unfortunately I didn’t receive a single response to my 10 emails. On Sunday I revamped my email responses included more information about myself, emphasized that I can pay the rent (this is a big problem in Manhattan apparently, a lot of people are worried about flaky roommates; understandable). I sent another 10 or so emails on Sunday.

When Monday rolled around the real world hit both of us. Diana had to get some homework done and I needed to find a place to live. Fortunately I had received a few responses to my emails and I had a list of places to go look at. Diana stayed at her place to get her work done in private while I walked around Manhattan and Brooklyn looking for a place to live. I looked at 4 or 5 places that day. Oh I have some interesting stories about them. I didn’t find anything that I liked but I did find a lot of crazy people.
Welcome to New York.

Tuesday was the same story, I sent out more emails and received just a small fraction in responses. Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday and Thursday just plain sucked. I only looked at 2 places and I didn’t like either of them. So far I have looked at 12 different places and I have sent out over 50 emails.

Hopefully I find something today. This morning I sent out another 2 or 3 emails and I received only 1 response\\ from a place that I emailed yesterday.

Ok, I’m going to get back to emailing. I’ll try to keep my blog updated more often and I’m working on taking photos (I have taken 2 photos since Thursday).

I'm done.... no more...

Jacob Redding — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 19:47:00 +0000

This past year has just been a little too off the mark for me. School has kicked my butt around quite a bit, I have to move shortly, my car was broken into, my car had some mechanical problems and Tina and I broke up. I've reached a point of giving up, I've decided to drop out of the graduate program and just get a standard run-of-the-mill job that doesn't require a lot of thought. I do not want to work in computers because it stresses me out nor do I want to be an accountant because that would be tedious and mundane (and would thus stress me out). Instead I'm going to teach swim lessons or go back to being a lifeguard, something much much simplier.

I'm not quite sure where I am going to move yet, but it'll most likely be out of Portland because I just can't take this town anymore. Yelm, Washington sounds nice as does Yreka, California. I've never been to Montana before but I'm sure that there is a pool that needs a lifeguard/swim instructor, maybe I'll give Montana a try. I thought about Utah but that would just stress me out WAY too much. hhhmm.. Got any good suggestions?

Spring-->Summer Itinerary

Jacob Redding — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 22:06:00 +0000

Spring and Summer are going to be quite an experience for me. Most of you already know that in June I will be heading to France to finish my studies in the masters program of finance. What I haven't been so forthcoming with, as of yet, are my plans leading up to and after my trip to France. So without further ado here they are:

The month of April
- Begin the selling of unneeded items.
- Move remaining items into a storage facility.
May 1st to the middle of May, Moving!!!
- Oh yes, this is going to be quite fun. My roommate is moving in with his girlfriend and the original plan was for us to move June 1st but due to her lease ending and their increased desire to move in together we are pushing this up to the middle of May or May 1st (depending on if we can prorate rent at our current place).
- Where am I moving? That's a very good question. I have no idea. If anyone out there has a couch, extra room or a place they'd like to let me sleep for a month and a week please contact me. ;) I can cook and clean and I am very quite, I usually just study all day.
June 11th
- My studies, in the states, are finished!!! Whoo Hooo!!!
- Hooding Ceremony 4-6pm, Hoffman Hall on the Portland State University Campus.
June 13th
- Depart from PDX at 6 am bound for Vancouver, BC.
- Vancouver BC to Heathrow airport, London
June 14th- June 20th.
- Travel from London to Marseille, France
June 21st - July 9th
- Study at the Business School in Marseille, France
July 10th - August 9th
- Travel Around Europe.
August 10th
- Depart Paris, France at 11:55am bound for Toronto, Ca.
- Toronto Ca to Vancouver BC.
- Vancouver BC to PDX Or.
August 10th-13th
- Sleep somewhere in PDX or up in Olympia.
August 13th-September 1st-5th
- Either a Rent-a-Car drive to Florida or a cheap round-trip flight to Florida
- Travelling with my friend Ryan
September 5th-6th
- Get back to PDX and begin a desperate search for an apartment
- Move into an apartment/hotel/under a bridge/friend's couch until I find a place
September 13th
- Begin working

As you can see I have a pretty busy schedule ahead of me. The only part that really worries me is the month of May. I'm not quite sure where I am going to be living and I really need someplace stable so that I can concentrate on my studies. I'm going to check on possible sleeper rooms on campus, as that would be ideal, or subletting with someone. All of this is quite a blur at this point and I don't have anytime to think about it right now. I must push my plan making back into Spring break as I have two REALLY HUGE finals coming up. One of which may be the deciding factor if I graduate from the Masters program this year or next year. If I fail this course (grade of C or lower) then I will have to retake it next year and by year I, unfortunately, mean a full twelve month period (not a school year). You can probably understand how much I DON'T want that.